The potential benefits of preserving a baby's umbilical cord blood have been proposed. Now scientists are taking it one step further to preserve the actual umbilical cord tissue. The ideas is that a section of umbilical cord at birth and all of the cells within it may be stored. The cord tissue is frozen in a cryogenic storage tanks for long-term preservation. If the baby's cells are needed for therapies in the future, the cord tissue can be processed to extract the cells using the best technology at that time.
The Wharton's Jelly of the umbilical cord (cord tissue) is a rich source of pluripotent mesenchymal stem cells (MSC), which have great potential in regenerative medicine. MSC can differentiate into bone, cartilage, nerve, adipose, cardiac, smooth muscle, hepatic and skin cells.
Since this is a rather new area of preservation and subsequent cell culturing, there is a need for efficient protocols.